Apple Goes Silent On Healthcare With Launch Of First Wearable

In all fairness, the hype for
Apple's new wearable (revealed earlier today as Apple Watch) was off the chart ‒ even by legendary Apple standards.

It was, after all, no less than globally renowned Apple designer Jonathan Ive who was referenced in the New York Times just last week with this "gleeful" proclamation.

According to a designer who works at Apple, Jonathan Ive, Apple’s design chief, in bragging about how cool he thought the iWatch was shaping up to be, gleefully said Switzerland is in trouble — though he chose a much bolder term for “trouble” to express how he thought the watchmaking nation might be in a tough predicament when Apple’s watch comes out. Tech, Meet Fashion ‒ New York Times (9/3/2014)

Whatever else can be said about Apple's new smartchwatch, the Matterhorn was not scaled and the Tyrolean yodelers look comfortably positioned to enjoy a few more years of haute couture for both male and female wrists. For a rough idea of what that market looks like (by average unit price and volume) here's a chart from February 2013 (Time Is Money ‒ The Economist).

Before all the pitchforks come out claiming I'm anti‒Apple, my record relative to Apple and healthcare specifically isn't just positive ‒ it's bullish ‒ on at least two (distinctly separate) occasions where I've referenced Apple products in healthcare.

The fact is ‒ if digital/mobile health are to succeed (at scale) we desperately need as many big tech titans as we can muster to help. Earlier this year Sergey Brin over at
Google was pretty clear with his own lack of interest.

Generally, health is just so heavily regulated. It's just a painful business to be in. It's just not necessarily how I want to spend my time. Even though we do have some health projects, and we'll be doing that to a certain extent. But I think the regulatory burden in the U.S. is so high that think it would dissuade a lot of entrepreneurs. Khosla Ventures Fireside Chat with Larry Page and Sergey Brin

With that as the backdrop, the Apple Watch itself has many of the trademark elements of world class design. Rich materials, well rounded edges and two different sizes along with a dizzying array of band options to either dress up or sport down.

Apple Watch

The only question here for the Apple faithful ‒ is it enough of a design statement to hit $17.5 billion in first year sales as suggested by Morgan Stanley earlier this year? Starting at $349 per watch ‒ it would need to sell over 50 million units. That's almost twice the volume that the Swiss ship globally each year. We'll see.

Unfortunately, the technology itself is underwhelming for three critical reasons:

2) Elegant, but entirely new and different charging cable (as in different from all other Apple products)

3) Battery life ‒ never referenced (rough translation here is that it's not good)

This last one is the most difficult ‒ and surprising. Having owned several wrist wearables I can honestly say that battery life is the weakest technology link for anything wearable ‒ especially if the cable and connection is different than any other device (wearable or portable). I'm not alone in this assessment.

In other words, Apple hasn't solvedthe basic smartwatch dilemma, which is that smart watches use up far more energy than dumb watches, and that there’s nowhere to store that much energy in something the size of a watch. Indeed, Apple has made the problem worse, by combining a powerful computer with a very bright, ultra-high-resolution, full-color display. Either of those things would require a lot of energy; both together require a very thick watch anda limited battery life. Apple Hasn't Solved The Smartwatch Dilemma ‒ Felix Salmon

In terms of my primary interest and focus ‒ healthcare ‒ it was largely a no‒show event. No significant reference to HealthKit. No reference to the Mayo partnership. No reference to the Epic partnership (here).

All of the references, demos and glitzy videos showed relatively young, urban hipsters in various stages of youthful athleticism (4 minute Health & Fitness clip) ‒ or Introducing Apple Watch (10 minute video ) with Jony Ive as the voiceover (here). Loads of fitness fun but no reference to healthcare. The clear focus was on those devoted Apple fans that are also part of the quantified self movement. It's a core Apple demographic, to be sure, but at least for this first version it does end all the rampant speculation that healthcare was going to play a pivotal role in Apple's newest creation. It may well be coming (and I do hope it is), but it wasn't evident today.